


a sense of reliability

by EasyPeasyPanic



Series: my darker fics [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Butsuma's A+ Parenting comes back to haunt him, Character Death, Drabble, Enemies who were lovers while still enemies, Graphic Description, Love/Hate, M/M, Suicide, This got very dark not gonna lie, Tobirama and Hashirama appear in the very end, brief internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:33:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23903158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EasyPeasyPanic/pseuds/EasyPeasyPanic
Summary: He can feel it deep in his chest. Tajima's dying.Butsuma calls for retreat.
Relationships: Senju Butsuma/Uchiha Tajima
Series: my darker fics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657405
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	a sense of reliability

**Author's Note:**

> this got really dark and out of hand and it was supposed to be longer but i got bored of it so 
> 
> *jazz hands* take it as you will

* * *

_ No, no, no, NO-- _

He repeats it, like a rhythm, like a prayer, a chant. His body moving to the rhythm of his own fears, already half-way across the battlefield. Uzumaki Reo raises his sword again, to finish the blow, and Tajima  _ sighs _ beneath him, still put together, still somehow in control, even as his blood spills across the ground. It's a miserable thing, isn't it? To be fucking his own enemy? To be scared for a man he hates?

(And wanting it more and more and  _ please just stay, I could love you…) _

Tajima strikes, fast and furious, a kunai through the Uzumaki heir's tender throat. But he falls back down all the same. His Uchiha sons are screaming, clamoring around him, but Butsuma can see it. 

He can  _ feel _ it deep in his chest. Tajima's dying. 

Butsuma calls for retreat. 

**_______ **

Butsuma is pathetic. He's pathetic and traitorous, and disgusting in all the ways his father had tried to beat out of him as a boy. There was a distant member of the clan, once, a red-headed man that caught Butsuma's eyes on an envoy to Uzushio. And just maybe Butsuma caught his eye too, just enough for a smile, just enough to be wanted. Which is why he fell into that man's bed that night and the next night, and a month later before he had to leave, and there were promises spilled in the moonlight. Promises broken when Father found out, when Father dragged Butsuma out by his hair, naked and marked up, to shame him in front of the entire clan. The man that had promised to stay with him forever returned to Uzushio and never returned.

(Butsuma had taken Father's beating and vile words in stride, but couldn't take the embarrassment or disgust from his cousins and clansmen. He learned to never fall into another man's bed again.)

But here he is. Fantasizing about his enemy. His dead enemy. The spies are confident in their information. Tajima bled out. He's dead. 

He remembers what Tajima said, the last time they met to let loose some frustrations, to fuck until every thought was gone from there heads. It won't be happening again.  _ Which is what I said the last time, and the time before that, and the time that it happened in the mud. _

But it did happen again and again. And it's destroying himself to know that it really had been the last time. Tajima died. Butsuma doesn't know what to do with that information. With any of the information going through his head. He remembers the way Tajima's face would scrunch up in a mixture of pleasure and pain when they first met. They had done  _ it _ enough for Butsuma to  _ know  _ where his sweet spot was, to know how to make Tajima's expressions change into something less pinched and angry, how to draw out long moans and soft huffs of breath. 

He remembers the feeling of nails against his back, blunt and cut short, maybe a cracked one that drags hard against his flesh, but it doesn't matter. None of it matters. It had felt way too good to matter then, and it doesn't matter now because he would never be having a repeat performance. 

His chest  _ hurts _ . It aches with loss that shouldn't be his to mourn. He's disgusting. It's unnatural, and it isn't what was intended for him from birth. He had duties, had heirs he needed, had a place in society that wouldn't fit with what he felt on the inside. What kind of clan leader would be respected or feared if they knew how he felt towards other men? If they knew he liked the feeling of being with a man (not any man, it had just been Tajima) liked being used, and everything in between.  _ Pathetic. Disgusting. Useless to the clan. An abomination-- _

It'll be different now. He'll never return home and  _ remember _ and hate himself. He won't have to always wonder if the hateful, blank stares from his sons, his clansmen, were because they  _ knew  _ what he did. If they saw through his bruises and limp and messy hair. 

(Or worse, the hatred of his sons weren't for his choice of bedmate, but just simply directed to him.)

"Butsuma-sama?"

He blinked slowly, coming out of his own mind. Arms crossed against his chest, face pinched off. "It was valuable information, Itsuki." He told him, the man bowed low. "I will wait for the formal announcement before we move, however."

"Of course, Butsuma-sama." 

"Dismissed." 

And there, left alone, he dares to let himself wonder  _~~ (hope) ~~ _ that perhaps his spy was incorrect. Perhaps Tajima was still alive. 

**_____ **

The announcement comes. 

Not formally, there's no such thing, but once the confirmation of Uchiha Tajima's death circulates enough to all the clans that they all believe it through their own spies, it becomes universally acknowledged. It doesn't surprise him, although a tinge of anger and disappointment bubbles in his stomach. 

Everyone left him eventually. Nobody ever stayed. That man from Uzushio never returned for a visit. His wife (and oh how he'd loved his wife) had died quickly of a respiratory infection only a handful of months after Itama's birth. And then it was Kawarama that left next when he was killed, then his first cousin and advisor Senju Kaito to leave him in favor of rotting in his coffin. His cousin Momoka married into the Uzumaki only to never write him again, and then Itama was killed. Tobirama couldn't bear to look at him anymore with anything  _ close  _ to respect and shied away to his own quarters. Hashirama openly ignored and resented him, all because he tried to prevent him from leaving off with that Uchiha boy. Everyone left him, everyone died, nobody ever stayed. Nobody ever  _ wanted _ to stay. 

Nobody but Tajima. His enemy, the man that had led the killers of his sons (his boys, his flesh and blood), the only reliable man in his life. Enemies never left, hatred never faded, and the heart never healed when it was ripped apart and shoved back in. It was seared into his flesh, the  _ desire _ to gut Tajima with his own blade, to avenge his flesh and blood, and the feeling was mutual. It would always be mutual. Enemies couldn't leave. 

They were constant. Unyielding. A blade always to clash against his own, a person to always fulfill his desires. They knew each other well, saw deep into each other's hearts, knew exactly where to meet what, what to do--

Well, not anymore. He was alone again. Tajima was struck down, burning on a pyre in black Uchiha fire, and he was left alone again. Left behind. 

And for the first time, it seemed unbearable. Fresh rage coursed through his veins like poison, leaving his fists shaking, and he excuses his council before fleeing to his room. Of all the ways for Uchiha Tajima to die, for him to rot away from a wound to his belly by an  _ Uzumaki _ , rather than at Senju Butsuma's hand--!

No,  _ no _ , it wasn't right. Didn't Tajima love and hate him enough for them to go together? Just as it should always be, striking each other down, finishing miserable lives together. 

One of the elders refused to leave him be, lingering by the door to his chambers as he went down the hallway, "Butsuma-sama." He says pointedly. Butsuma pauses, offering him a contemptful look. 

"Yes, Hi-san?"

"You didn't address our plans for a strike against the Uchiha." 

Butsuma gave him an unimpressed stare, "I've not decided on a course of action yet." He replied firmly. The elder didn't appear appeased however, his wrinkled face contorting into hollowed rage. 

"We need to move quickly. The window of opportunity will close soon once that Uchiha brat finds a semblance of footing in leadership."

"I under, Hi-san." Butsuma replies hotly. "But  _ I  _ am the leader  _ here _ , and I am preparing what to do without outside input. Now, I've dismissed you.  _ Go _ ."

His cane slams against the floor, resonating throughout the room. But it does little to frighten Butsuma, not like it did to startle his sons. Alone, standing in the dark hallway as the sun sets outside, he wonders for a moment what exactly he will do. There is ample opportunity to strike the Uchiha while they're weakened, the entire clan dynamic shifting to allow the man's son to take over as leader. 

But Butsuma feels underwhelmed at the idea of going after the Uchiha like a savage wolf gnawing on the bloody throat of a deer, because there would be no challenge there. What was the point without Tajima? No, no, Butsuma had little desire for that. 

It was too painful to be left alone once more to care for such matters. Renewed anger at Tajima's abandonment filled his mind, forcing him to breathe through his nose to regain him. No, Butsuma would not be left behind again. Not by the person he hated and loved most, not by that damned Uchiha.

This time he would follow after him. 

**_____ **

Crying out was unacceptable, a sure sign of absolute weakness, therefore Butsuma does not do such a thing. No matter the pain of slicing through his own belly, the agony of watching himself perform the deed and then collapse upon himself, his life spilling out as surely as his shredded organs. He hits the tatami mats, his knees still tucked under him, and Butsuma forces his jittery limbs to calm. 

Forces himself to grit his teeth and  _ endure _ . It hurts, yes, as much physically as the turmoil of emotions does mentally at the loss of the Uchiha. It feels worse than anything else he's ever experienced, and he coughs and coughs, the pain knocking the air from his lungs. Iron on his lips, in his mouth, like a bloody kiss from Tajima  _ before _ , and isn't he back to being pathetic? Dying by his own hand, desperately clinging to a last shred of reliability, unwilling to be left alone. A true shinobi wouldn't have done what he just did, but Butsuma is much too old to have died any other way, for what glory remains when an old man dies in battle?

He gasps wetly, huffing for breath, far too aware of himself. Butsuma imagined he'd pass out from the agony, imagined he'd bleed out quicker than this, or fall into a merciful  _ black _ . It doesn't happen that way, why would it? No, this is atonement. For Kawarama, Itama, Tajima, himself, for letting every emotion cloud him and be used against him. Every muscles aches and screams, shaking with hormonal panic to  _ run run run  _ away from the pain, but he can't bring himself to move, his limbs refuse. 

The floor is wet and warm, but his face is cool against it. He huffs and coughs and--

" _ Chichi-ue _ ? Your chakra--"

That voice is...far too familiar. Tobirama slides open the shogi screen, stepping inside. His feet pad against the wood softly, almost unnoticed, and Butsuma can't stop the flash of pride amongst the pain. He gurgles, licking his lips, preparing himself to tell the boy to calm himself. Wide red eyes peer down at him, a flash of panic and confusion in them, and something far darker and unreadable. Tobirama's mouth opens and then closes. He stares down at Butsuma as if he were examining those time wasting rocks and plants he's so fond of, and Butsuma shifts to turn to him, but fire races through his veins. He can't-- he  _ can't _ , his body shuts down with the pain. His limbs refuse. 

Before Butsuma can say anything, Tobirama spins around. He glances back, his youngest son telling him: "I'm going to get Anija."

And then he's gone. Butsuma's eyes close, not yet close enough to death for his body to shut down completely, far too aware of the strange  _ pulls _ of bloody and tissue across his abdomen, and tries to think of what to say to Hashirama. The boy'll try to heal him, the sappy mess of a shinobi he was. Far too emotional and far too sentimental and loving. 

(Butsuma had always feared the day Hashirama married and procreated. His son was far too soft and his children would die young as a result.)

He'll tell him not to, surely. He'll order him away, snarling cruel words to ward off the tearful boy, and give commands to Tobirama to drag him away. Butsuma has made his choice, and his youngest is obedient enough to understand that. The footsteps are louder, Hashirama's no doubt, and the two shuffle into the room quickly. Tobirama shuts the door behind them, and Hashirama gasps loudly. 

"Chichi-ue." He exclaims, eyes wide, and he leans down, but doesn't roll him over. He glances up at Tobirama, and Butsuma strains his neck to try and see if the boy is crying yet. Useless tears, and an embarrasement to know he had raised his son so softly. Butusuma swallows down the blood, bares his teeth to tell Hashirama not to bother trying to save him, to  _ go away _ . 

But the words die on his lips. Hashirama's face is hardened, unemotional. No anger or sadness or contempt, just pursued lips and blank dark eyes. He examines Butsuma far differently than Tobirama, and he stands up. Tilts his head. 

"We found him dead." Hashirama says quietly. "When we're asked by the elders, it was too late to save him, okay, Tobira?"

And Butsuma doesn't expect that. Doesn't expect that  _ Hashirama  _ would ever suggest such a thing, not his healer of a son, not his soft boy. He can't find any words to say, not now, not as he watches Tobirama nod eagerly. Pale arms cross, and he gives Butsuma another analyzing glance. 

"How long…?"

"Maybe two hours. He's bleeding a lot." Hashirama scrubs a hand across his face, sighing, but doesn't move to change his decision. He's made his choice, just as Butsuma had his choice on how roughly to raise his sons, and perhaps 

He might deserve this, for all the strikes and cruel words used to harden his sons. When did his fatherly affection, his purposeful distant, create such a rift that kind-hearted Hashirama could see his dying father and not bother to lift a finger to heal him, suicide or not. Butsuma huffs out a laugh that comes out as a choked gurgle, and two pairs of eyes watch him. 

"I'll make sure nobody comes in." Tobirama volunteers. He pressed a hand against his big brother's shoulder, a comfort. His two sons, his last two, the only ones not to leave him, are far too quick to watch him leave  _ them _ . And well--

Butsuma dies laughing, and far too hopeful to find a place in Heaven or Hell to fight with Tajima again. 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> not sure where i came up with this considering I was working on my new farmer! Madara fic at the same time 🤷🤔


End file.
